Three reasons why doctors mourn the passing of Steve Jobs

Doctors love their Apple Products. Just walk into any hospital ward, and see the types of mobile devices we are using. At weekly Grand Rounds conferences, you see plenty of iPads in use. At physician meetings, the laptop of choice is often the Macbook Pro. The data backs these anecdotal examples as well.

Doctors love their Apple Products – and Steve Jobs was obviously an extension of these products, often times cited as the singular force behind these products, and it’s why physicians who love his products mourn his passing.

There are three specific reasons why :

1) Simplicity

In medicine, we deal with enough complexity. Knowing disease pathology and the mechanism of various illnesses and their treatments is a fascinating exercise, but it’s taxing. For every known in medicine, there are at least five unknowns. It’s what makes being a physician exciting, but stressful as well. We’re always on high alert – especially those of us who practice in the critical care arena.

Juxtaposed to this is our personal life arena, which doesn’t consist of beeping monitors, abnormal vital signs, and dying patients. We want the technology we use to be easy to understand, and simple to use – simplicity is something we appreciate due to the complexity of our profession.

We appreciate simplicity even more because of the software we use in a hospital setting. Ask any physician about their electronic medical record, or even the software on the medical devices they use. It’s a functional experience, but not a fun one. The $60,000 ultrasound machine I often use in the Emergency Room, while extremely functional and allowing me to make the proper diagnoses, has a horrid user interface. These types of experiences give us an appreciation for uncomplicated.

Simple is good for us. Simple is nice. Simple is fun. Simple is a relief.

2) Solid Build Quality

As I mentioned above, the software on many of the devices we use is not optimal, but usually, the same cannot be said for the hardware we use. The hardware we use in the surgical arena, or even to do invasive procedures at the bedside is of solid build quality. It has to be, hence the phrase “medical grade”. Peoples lives depend on the integrity of the hardware we use. As physicians, we appreciate this same medical grade feel extending to our personal tools.

The feeling of a Macbook Pro confers this – just compare the aluminum unibody hardware build to the majority of plastic casing laptops – it’s a completely different experience. This type of comparison extends into the smartphone and tablet arena as well. The iPad and iPhone 4 have a clearly superior build quality than their competitors

3) Uniformity

This has some overlaps with the first reason, but the key message here is that if you know how to use an iPhone, you know how to use an iPad. Jobs was a genius at understanding that uniformity is key for adoption. As physicians, we lack free time. We don’t want to sit down for hours and figure out the intricacies of an operating system. We don’t want to root a mobile phone (Android), just so we can take off the silly skins that a manufacturer throws on so that we can get a better user experience.

A better user experience shouldn’t have to be manufactured by the end user. It should be manufactured by the device maker – something Jobs unstood well. As he would often say, we want something that “just works.”

Jobs was an incredible innovator, who’s vision was nothing short of changing the way we do everything. His legacy, though impressive now, is sure to only grow as things like the nascent mHealth industry, which he helped spark, begin to mature.

iMedicalApps is an independent online medical publication for medical professionals, patients, and analysts interested in mobile medical technology and health care apps. Our physician editors lead a team of physicians, allied health professionals, medical trainees, and mHealth analysts in providing reviews, research, and commentary of mobile medical technology. Our publication is heavily based on our own experiences in the hospital and clinic setting.